A fine jewelry “rope” chain is usually comprised of individual links intertwined to form a chain having the appearance of a double helix. The intertwining of such links is customarily done by hand, with gaps facilitating the interengagement or intertwining of links to form a chain. The rope chain art has evolved considerably since its inception, to the extent that a layman probably takes for granted the complicated and various methods used to create a highly decorative and ornamental piece of jewelry.
The appearance of individual links and the manner in which such links are intertwined to form a chain usually dictate the appearance of the resultant chain. The prior art is replete with rope chains formed from solid and hollow links having all different shapes and sizes. Such links are also formed using a variety of methods. Conventionally, a solid or hollow wire is wrapped around a supporting core and then cut so that the wire separates into individual pieces, each piece having a gap for intertwining with other pieces (the term “wire” is customarily used in the jewelry rope chain art and will be used herein to designate a solid strand of material, or a flat, stamped material that has been rolled into an elongated strand of tubular cross-section). After the wire is cut, and before the individual pieces can be intertwined, the pieces are flattened into links. Other methods of creating links are known in the art, including punching an individual link from a sheet of material using a one-step process as taught by Rozenwasser in U.S. Pat. No. 5,544,477 or a two-step process as taught by Grando in U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,704.
Recently, there has been a movement in the rope chain field toward highly decorative surface ornamentation, where the outer surface or periphery of individual chain links are modified or materially altered, both before and after they have been formed into a rope chain. Surface ornamentation usually occurs after the links have been assembled into a rope chain, through methods widely known in the art. This usually involves the creation of a rope chain, followed by the faceting, notching, cutting, bending, deforming, scraping or the like, of distinct portions of such chain, until the desired surface effect is achieved on exposed portions of individual links and the chain as a whole.
Certain methods of surface ornamentation are dependent or preferred based on the type of link used to form the chain, while other methods are preferred depending on the desired effect one wishes to achieve. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,129,220 to Strobel and U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,584 to Strobel et al., disclose the incremental deforming, by a blunt, burnishing tool, of a hollow link rope chain, which, after several passes by such tool, results in individual links having flattened exposed surfaces. U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,625 to Ofrat et al. discloses the use of a diamond cut forming machine to create diamond cut facets extending spirally around the longitudinal center of the chain, while U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,540 to Rozenwasser discloses the use of a diamond-cutting edge to create shallow depressions along the surface of a thin plate of metal that will eventually be formed into a wire and then a link. The Rozenwasser '540 patent also discloses the creation of shallow depressions on a wire prior to dividing or cutting into links, while U.S. Pat. No. 5,412,935, also to Rozenwasser, discloses the cutting of facets into a link having a raised surface. See also U.S. Pat. No. 5,537,812 to Rozenwasser. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,471,830 and 5,526,639 to Gonzales disclose the cutting of an assembled rope chain to create a continuously curved surface.
In addition to providing surface ornamentation in the form of faceting and contouring, the overall appearance of rope chains has in the past been altered by using links of various shapes. For example in U.S. Design Pats. Nos. 368,048 and 370,184 and 370,426 all to Rozenwasser, modified “C”-shaped links are intertwined to form jewelry rope chains having unique overall designs. While the design of each link is ornamentally unique, each link has a consistent inner and outer peripheral surface and profile and a consistent thickness along such profile.
The faceting and contouring of assembled rope chains has become fairly complicated to meet the demands for unique surface configurations. This has resulted in contouring methods and machinery of increased complexity. There exists a need, therefore, for a method of creating fashionably contoured rope chains that is relatively uncomplicated, efficient to implement, inexpensive in its operation, and provides the designer with a multitude of contouring options unseen or unexperienced in the prior art. Recognizing this need, the present inventor has devised a method of creating ornamentally desirable rope chains by fashionably contouring the outer periphery of individual links, thereby avoiding the costly process of enlisting complicated machinery to act upon ever-increasingly complicated rope chain configurations. More specifically, one embodiment of the method of the present invention involves the arrangement of individual links onto a mandril, followed by the contouring of the outer periphery of such links by hand, machine or the like. After the individual links have been contoured as desired, the links are removed from such mandril and assembled into rope chains using methods known in the art. In other embodiments, the outer peripheries of individual links are contoured without the use of a mandril.